“Listen,” Jack says in the stern voice she uses sometimes, the one that does absolutely nothing to my blood pressure. “I’ve been thinking about this since last night. We are two queer women, and we’re going to use this drive back to the cabin to do what queer women do.”

Blood pressure: rising. “And, uh… what’s that?”

“We’re going to talk about our feelings.”

Well. That’s worse than I predicted.

“Do we have to?”

Jack nods curtly. “Yes. It seems like we’ve had some kind of miscommunication about what happened last year. Miscommunications are for the straights,” she says with self-righteous indignation. “We are going to talk this out.”

Jack starts the car. Before she pulls out of the parking lot, she begins fiddling with the aux to cue her playlist. Annie Lennox. “Walking on Broken Glass.”

I shift awkwardly in my seat as the dog curls himself into a ball on my lap. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about what happened because I’m with Andrew now?” I am not above using Andrew as a shield to protect me from this impending conversation.

Jack shoots me a look as she navigates us back to the main road. “I changed my mind. There’s not exactly a guidebook for what you’re supposed to do when your brother gets engaged to your ex”—I note she says ex, not former one-night stand—“but I think we need to clear the air between us so we can move on and start acting like…” A swallow that causes her throat to tremble. “Sisters-in-law.”

Jack isn’t wearing her glasses, but two fingers rise to the bridge of her nose to push them up out of habit. “Tell me what happened last Christmas.”

I think about snow magic and crying with my boots under my arm.

“You were married,” I say.

The truck goes silent save for Annie Lennox. When I risk a glance at Jack’s profile, her jaw is clenched and her hands are strangling the steering wheel. Until she says, finally, “What?”

“Claire.” It’s such a pretty name. Why did her wife have to have such a pretty name? “While you were in the shower, Claire came by the Airstream. Did she never tell you?”

Jack doesn’t relinquish her grasp on the wheel, but she shakes her head.

“Well, Claire came by,” I continue, and I am impressed by how measured my words are, by how well I’m feigning indifference in this moment. I guess she taught me well. “She told me the two of you had some kind of agreement, and she implied that she’d wanted you to go out and have a one-night stand. So, I left because…” Because I felt so silly for loving you too quickly.